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I trained as an abstract painter in college. I loved to paint. In 1980, after a very brief involvement in graduate school, I went to live in New York City, an important and difficult decision I made for my vocation as an artist. In NYC, I found myself formed by the people I met, the creative direction of the artistic community, and the energy and pulse of the city. The city was so large, overcrowded with stuff, both beautiful and ugly. I abandoned painting and the concept of making art as a permanent tangible form. I sought nothingness - the empty space as reprieve from the visual stimuli the city provided. I wondered about the validity of bringing more into being. My creative work moved into temporal geo-linear installation. I wanted, through this work, to make a statement about space. I stayed in the city for 20 years.
In 2001, after the death of my partner, near homelessness, and an utter crumbling of a world I had built, I found myself home again in rural Maryland, living in a little farm house on the eastern shore. Looking up at the big sky and light of this surprisingly beautiful place touched my soul. I found peace in the mastery of God, inspiration. I no longer thought of myself as a contemporary artist. Pain had made me question. With sadness, I knew that through this particular journey, I was being reshaped and that I had also lost the artistic identity the city had formed in me, it no longer seemed to fit or to be relevant.
What I did find during this time was myself. Grief strips laurels. Naked, I found the buried child who at seven had innocently called herself an artist. I returned to painting, privately. I recognized that the emotional space I occupy while painting is a connection to other world, other place, church under sky. I understood. For me, the act of painting is a bridge. I began to view the paintings as tangible diaries, markers of my time with this connection to spirit and the world’s splendor.
Healed, I remarried and moved to Texas. I watch the landscape. Here, I find myself stopping by the side of the road to simply watch the sky, horizon and lay of the land. And, it is beautiful. I absorb it, the big sky, the low horizon line, the amber grasses, the rush of water, the reflection of light. I can forget about the ugliness of the world while captivated by the ambiguity of place where sky and land / sea meet. A mysterious edge that looks like both and neither. This marvel inspires me. I simply want to go there, be there, and be one with it.
My painting is the embodiment of the emotion this visual experience brings to me. I cannot capture Nature and I do not try to. One might say, however, that it has captured me.
2009 |
